


This Petty Pace From Day to Day

by Puzzle_with_Infinite_Pieces



Series: Gargoyles: One Shot, Two Shot, Red Shot, Blue Shot [2]
Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, References to Shakespeare, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puzzle_with_Infinite_Pieces/pseuds/Puzzle_with_Infinite_Pieces
Summary: There were days where he felt lost, and today, tonight rather, was one of them. On those nights, he tries to be found. TW: self-harm and suicide attempt
Series: Gargoyles: One Shot, Two Shot, Red Shot, Blue Shot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599325
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	This Petty Pace From Day to Day

Macbeth would surprise many when he told them that he had worked with William Shakespeare to tell his story. However, few would be surprised to hear him say that he was rather displeased with the result. 

However, it was not because he was so full of himself that he thought he was not the villain in many stories. For, he knew that he was. He just wished the man had taken into account his side of things a bit more. 

Yet, if he were to be even more honest, he wished that his wife’s beauty and grace had been captured in the flowing verses of the great poet. Macbeth wanted her to be immortalized in her perfection, and he longed to soothe her, if only a caricature of her, with the gentle words of an experienced bard. His deepest regret was not requiring the playwright to alter his wife’s character into something more befitting of her. Macbeth took no issue in Shakespeare capturing her strength, but he longed to see his wife’s gentle, caring, and wise nature also captured. 

Macbeth lamented the way his wife had been characterized for at least a hundred years, and even still, in short pangs in odd hours and days after those hundred years had passed. 

For, his wife was not the wretched and unfeeling character Shakespeare had made her out to be. Quite the contrary, she was tender, beautiful, and loving. In regards to the character of his wife, Macbeth and the young bard had disagreed vehemently. Though he was frustrated with the portrayal of Donalbain and the lack of a Hunter, he could let that go over the rolling centuries. However, his wife’s portrayal constantly burned as the kindling for a fire of failure to her. 

Yet, in the end, Macbeth had no say in how the story was told because he could not reveal the incorrect details in his narrative without revealing his secret. 

Loathe as he was to admit it, there was a line attributed to his “character” that Macbeth loved. It seemed a perfect time to recall the words as they played out around him.

_All our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!_

Macbeth looked at the burning castle. His blazing home shimmered and reflected in his eyes. The reflection of the flame seemed to be an endless loop of time that threatened to crush him at every turn. The heat of the fire reached him, and he knew that he could run back into the building and reawaken with the dawn. 

For, His body would be burnt, and he would feel pain. Yet, death in all its sweet bliss would never take him. 

Macbeth stood, unsteadily at first, but he rose to his full height on his shaking legs. His feet rubbed against the steel toes and soft-lined insides of the leather combat boots. His long black leather coat snapped with each determined, though aimless, step. He wandered towards the flames in a distraught and haphazard manner. 

Macbeth placed a hand over his eyes and wiped at the tears that threatened to fall. The heat of the fire now seemed a perfect metaphor for his anger. It would burn itself out and ashes would be all that remained. Guilty, choking, raw, and bleak ashes always followed fire. Ashes were but a shadow of the anger that had first blazed. They would be all that was left to prove it was there to begin with. 

_Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more._

Macbeth pulled a single pistol from his pocket. He studied the trigger. He fiddled with each movable part. He was an idiot, and a fool, if he believed that he could take his own life. The curse would always prevent him from doing what he most desired. 

He longed to shake death’s hand. For, it was never his plan to be immortal. His bones were old. His body was broken, and his soul had died long ago. It remained entwined with his wife who had, in her wisdom, entreated him to leave her side to spare them further scrutiny. While he was not present for her dying breaths, he felt them. 

Demona had betrayed them. Demona had caused him to leave and let his homeland be invaded by the forces of England led by Donalbain’s son. Macbeth’s Scotland had fallen to ruin under the hands of the English. The English enforced their own rules on his people. Rules which did not belong to his kin. Furthermore, Macbeth had watched the world fall apart a hundred times only to be put back together by some other power. 

The stage changed, and he watched new backdrops be painted only to play out the same stories. The script was the same though the props changed. Each player delivered his lines and slunk into the grave. Yet, Macbeth was doomed to deliver new lines while he improvised his new scripts with each new Act and Scene thrown before him.

Other men had the luxury of spending an hour upon the stage with prewritten lines. He had spend near a millennia on this earth trying to write words for himself to say that didn’t sound stale in his mouth. 

His mind returned to the gun. He had tasted the metallic taste of blood before. He wondered if this time would be different. 

_It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing._

At last, he placed the gun at his temple. He looked up at the sky with a silent prayer that this would work. That, he could, by his own hand, reclaim his fate. 

He felt the dizzying pain when he felt the bullet lodge in his skull. He closed his eyes; and, for a brief moment, he relished the way that time stopped. For a moment, he thought he heard his wife’s sweet voice calling to him. He heard his son laughing. 

Suddenly, a flash of green surrounded him. He was pulled back into his body. The pain in his head crushed him. His hands shook violently as the blinding pain behind his eyes returned. He took a moment to revel in the fact that, for just a moment, wherever she was in the world, Demona had been brought down to her knees. 

Macbeth remained lying on his back with his eyes closed. He took a few shaky breaths before reopening his eyes and looking up at the sky. Somehow, he thought he saw the stars of Scotland in the cold unfeeling lights of New York City. 

Macbeth sat up in the grass. His hands brushed the dewy blades as he shuddered with the sensation of the cold and damp liquid between his fingers.

He noticed that, in the time he’d been unconscious, the castle became ash. His vision remained blurred for only another second before it returned to normal. 

Once again, Macbeth stood on legs as stable as a new fawn’s. He looked back at the rubble and wondered how he would begin to rebuild. But, he knew that he would rebuild. Even if it seemed pointless, he would rebuild. 

After all, tomorrow would come for tomorrow which would come for tomorrow. It would never end for him. For no matter what he did, he would be doomed to watch the creeping petty pace from day to day until the last syllable of recorded time. 

**Author's Note:**

> I got a little artsy with this one. But, OMGoodness do I love this character! UGH! My Shakespearian loving feels hurt so hard over him! 
> 
> So glad to see his "redemption arc" in "Pendragon" and his continued friendship with Arthur in the comics. #blessed!


End file.
